today's church and relevancy

The church of today seems to be struggling with its identity. In our post modern world, 'church' (as we have come to define it) seems to have lost its shine for most people.

And, in my opinion, it's not entirely unexpected. Even the casual student of modern culture could have predicted that our modern version of 'church' would become less and less relevant. And, if history has taught us anything, it has taught us that any 'movement' must be relevant to sustain itself...

Please do not misunderstand. Christ's Church (His body) is relevant! It is alive and well and, according to scripture, will not be 'overcome' by the 'gates of Hell'. I am confident that His Church is eternal and will survive and thrive... so how are we to reconcile Matthew 16:18 with the fact that many 'local churches' are struggling with survival (by that, I mean their attendance numbers are dwindling)? One can only assume there is a difference between our version of 'church' and the Church mentioned in the middle of Matthew 16.

...and therein lies the heart of the restoration plea...

So what are we to do?

Is it heretical to suggest that what 'the church' has been doing is not working? If we agree that we do not like the results we have been seeing (for the last 30 years or so), then it makes sense that we must evaluate how we 'got here', then change...

I know, there is a lot of resistance to change. We like things just so... but maybe we approach this restoration plea with baby steps... maybe we look at one area at a time...

Perhaps one area that deserves to be reviewed is the 'Sermon'. We seem to have made this the central reason for our gathering. I really enjoy a good sermon... I love a well-prepared, articulately delivered lesson from the Bible. But as much as I love to hear a great message, I see very little Biblical precedent for the way we have evolved this part of our worship.

We hire a 'professional' preacher to stand behind a pulpit and speak to the masses while we listen passively... this model has its roots in the unbiblical clergy/laity system of Pagan and Jewish worship and does little to advance the cause of the true restorationist.

At Riverside, we are trying to make some small changes to attack and defeat that clergy/laity idea...

(note: please don't believe for a moment that we have it all figured out at Riverside... we have tons of room for improvement in every area! we are simply trying to allow the Spirit to direct our journey...)

We do not have a paid staff member (and we are averaging about 220 worshippers on Sunday morning)... we do have a visiting preacher each week...

But last Sunday may have been the most meaningful 'sermon' I have listened to in a while...our speaker was a recovering addict from Tulsa. Sid shared his story with us, and we were all touched...

He is not educated or articulate; he is not a Biblical scholar by anyone's description. But he shared his story...

When he finished, I thought, "maybe that's what a 'sermon' sounded like in the first century church".

Oh well... baby steps.

Blessings!